


Space Case

by The_Word_Arranger



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Bad Boyfriends, Bad Friends, Bad Pickup Lines, Excessive Polyhedra, Excessive Science, Excessive Wardrobe Malfunctions, M/M, bad food, bad trips, much crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9810497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Word_Arranger/pseuds/The_Word_Arranger
Summary: Selene thought that nothing could compare to the absolute weirdness of the Angler fiasco.Unfortunately, the universe took that as a challenge...In which Selene encounters wardrobe malfunctions, scary big sisters, obscene pickup lines, bad comedy routines, questionable science, a puppy, a chicken pot pie, and unnecessarily complicated geometry.(Eh, I changed my mind on the title of this piece. It was called 'All the Way Home,' but I think this is better.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> There are more notes at the end that contain individual references for the polyhedral problem. It may help that part make a little more sense. Or not. Actually, I don’t think any of this will ever make sense. I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing, though so here you all go. 
> 
> The working title of this piece was ‘Crack Blitherings.’ God, I don’t even know where this crap comes from.
> 
> Why did you eat my formatting and mess up my tags, AO3?
> 
> All canon characters belong to HamletMachine, as does the quote from Starfighter: Eclipse.
> 
> As always, I have no beta and I suck at grammar. Constructive criticism is encouraged.
> 
> All love to HamletMachine!
> 
> ***

Selene stood carefully still and perfectly at attention and reflected that it was probably human nature that in times of crisis, great upheaval and unbelievable stress, the problems that always seemed the most awful were the small, embarrassing ones. 

It was four days after the debacle with the Anglers, and Selene and Ethos were once again in Commander Hayden’s office trying to find a way to explain to him what had happened in a way that it would actually fit into his head and possibly stay there. So far, they were not having much luck. Selene was fast coming to the conclusion that the communication problems were not on their end. They had managed to successfully explain what had happened to Encke (impressively smart), Helios (more perceptive than initially expected), and Cain (dumb as a bag of rocks but still apparently smarter than their superior officer), but had hit a wall with someone supposedly smart enough to obtain a command. 

That was problem the first. 

Problem the second was that the none of the crew were quite recovered from ending up one gasp from breathlessly fucked. Too many near death experiences and the joyful discovery that there was yet another alien race out there wanting to kill them would put anyone in a bad temper. Selene reflected that some of his crew mates didn’t need the extra help to be in a foul mood. He remembered back to his conversation with Helios before they transferred over to the Derelict. “A ship from a whole new alien race... They might even be friendly! That would be exciting!” Pfft. It had been way too exciting, and Selene hoped that the rest of his tour of duty would be sane and boring compared to the ridiculousness of his first deployment. Seeing how the universe apparently had it in for him these days, Selene wasn’t going to hold his breath; he felt like he’d done enough of that recently.

Problem the third was that Argon, Lead Fighter of the Siddha had decided that Selene was his new beloved darling, and kept popping up in all sorts of odd places to spout embarrassingly bad and increasingly obscene pickup lines at him. Selene was avoiding being alone in the common areas, and had gone yesterday with Ethos to the medical bay to visit Praxis and eat lunch with them rather than risk sitting in the mess by himself. Praxis was in the med bay under observation because he had fallen over unconscious when the oxygen levels on the Kepler dropped, and concussed himself badly when he hit the landing strut of Tiberius with his face, almost taking out his other eye in the process. 

Problem the fourth was that Selene was remembering just how bad he was at relationships. He recognized that he’d gone and fallen stupid hard for Helios in a stupid short amount of time, and Selene was struggling with that because he assiduously tried to avoid doing stupid things as a general life rule. He’d known he was in trouble from the moment he’d first met Helios, when he’d verbally misstepped, slipped on a Freudian and ended up with his foot in his mouth, but he never imagined how much Helios would come to mean to him, or how badly it would scare him. For someone who’d always moved fast, Selene was finding himself in the unusual position of needing maybe just a little space. It really didn’t help that he hadn’t been getting much sleep recently. He was pulling his regular shift on the bridge, helping maintenance finish unfucking what Abel had fucked up, helping Ethos and the MO keep Abel out of trouble, and still managed to find time to train with Helios in preparation for actual combat deployment. What time he had that he didn’t spend working was spent with Helios in extremely pleasurable, but extremely draining ways and Selene was mentally and physically exhausted. Helios could be very persuasive when he wanted to be, and he had wanted to be rather frequently. Selene wasn’t complaining, but last night... No. He wasn’t going to think about that in Commander Hayden’s office.

But all of these paled in comparison to problem the fifth, which was that his clothes had come back from the laundry… not his. Oh sure, they were in the bag that had his task name on it, and the socks and undershirts fit, but those underwear were two sizes too big. Somewhere on the ship, a somewhat larger person than him was running around with a severe wedgie and Selene kind of hated him right now. The briefs were too big to fit under his tight uniform pants, and he refused to report to his superior officer commando although he was regretting that choice because now every time he moved even the slightest, his thong crept a little more up his ass. 

He hadn’t even meant to bring the stupid thing with him, but the first time he’d gone to pull on his favorite pair of sweatpants, it had fallen out of the pant leg. He’d pulled it on in desperation that morning, and was now deeply sorry he had because it was taking up approximately 87% of his attention span. 

Selene put ‘Sorry you ended up court-martialed, Abel, but I was having a wardrobe malfunction,’ on the list of conversations he never wanted to have, and dragged his attention back to the present. 

He tuned back in just in time to hear Ethos winding down. “I’m glad you understand the nuances of the situation, sir. We will make sure to explain it fully in our report for future reference.” 

“Thank you, Ethos, Selene. You are dismissed.” Commander Hayden looked as foundered as a leaky ship lost at sea. Selene thought the analogy unfortunately apt given recent events, and also unfortunately normal for Commander Hayden. 

Selene followed Ethos stiffly out of Commander Hayden’s office and managed to hold his tongue until they were in the lift alone. “Did I miss some dramatic breakthrough where Commander Hayden suddenly understands what happened, or what?”

Ethos laughed a little bit under his breath. “Welcome back, space case! Sadly, you missed nothing.”

“But you said…” Selene started.

“Uh-huh. Do you know the definition of insanity? If Commander Hayden hasn’t gotten it by now, then I don’t think he ever will. It’s okay though. Lieutenant Keeler told me that Commander Hayden’s reports to Base Command are just our reports to him on different letter head.” 

“But you said…” Selene tried again.

“Yep. I’m also quite fluent in bullshit.” Ethos smiled his best ‘I’m a huge dork’ grin. “Speaking of which, I need to get to the mess for ‘talk to me’ lunch, but don’t think this means you’re getting out of explaining to me why you’re acting so weird today.”

Selene rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you later when you can roll around on the floor and laugh at my pain without scaring people.”

“It’s a deal.” Ethos stepped off the lift when the door opened on the mess level. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked when Selene made no move to follow him. 

“In a bit. I’ll catch up with you.” 

“M’kay.”

Selene rode the lift back up to crew quarters’ deck and palmed open the door to his bunk. He would rather go commando.

***

Selene warily eyed his plate of pasta, and was it his imagination or was it eying him back? He mentally shook himself and looked around the mess for Ethos.

Ethos was having one of his ‘talk to me’ lunches. Today he was speaking Dutch with one of the comp techs from the Siddha. Once it had been established that no one on either ship was still under the influence of the Anglers, the Commanders had arranged for the crews to intermingle somewhat. The Siddha had suffered the same devastating attack as they had, but Selene thought they might have actually gotten a worse deal. While Abel had sabotaged the Kepler in dramatic, and convoluted, but above all, repairable ways, Valentina had taken a large propane torch and melted anything she thought looked important. It was the kind of approach that Selene was quickly learning to expect from Valentina: direct, final and kind of violent. There was shit all anybody could do to fix the damage she had done, and the Siddha had been limping home for months with no sensors, no long-range communications array, no space-worthy Starfighters and a Rube Goldberg engine that like to fall apart a lot.

The Kepler was now towing them home, and providing additional supplies and a much needed change in scenery for a crew that had been trapped on a tiny ship for almost eight months. The comp tech Ethos was eating lunch with was a regular transfer over, although Selene thought that had less to do with what he was escaping on the Siddha, and more to do with the fact that he seemed quite taken with Ethos. He had also been heavily involved in the data decryption and translation, but hadn’t made nearly the kind of headway that Ethos had, and was therefore deeply impressed. When he’d found out that Ethos was the one who’d separated and translated a good portion of the language logs, he’d fan-boyed out in spectacular fashion. Ethos had turned pink in embarrassment and Selene, good friend that he was, had given him shit about it for days.

Knowing he was always welcome at ‘talk to me’ lunches, even if he did zero talking, Selene slid onto the bench across from Ethos and prepared to do battle with his lunch. 

At the next table over, he watched Porthos sit gingerly in his seat across from Phobos. Too much rough sex or, Selene’s eyes narrowed, sneaky underwear thief? If the latter was the case, then those briefs were dead to Selene. He would have to go the Quartermaster because he wasn’t ever putting them back on. Then Selene remembered that there was no Quartermaster out here, and that all their spare supplies, including uniforms had gone to the Siddha where the smell was reported to be much better now. Apparently Valentina had also found the industrial washer and dryer worthy of a tender caress from her flame thrower. 

A hand suddenly waved in front of his face. “Umm, Selene? Are you okay in there? You’ve been sitting with your fork halfway to your mouth for like, five minutes now.”

Selene dropped his fork back on his plate, and noticed that he and Ethos were alone at the table now. “I’m fine. Just thinking about... stuff.”

“Are you sure? Cuz if you also have a concussion, I’m more than happy to take you to medical so that you and Praxis can drool slightly at each other.”

“Screw you, Ethos.” Selene stuck his tongue out at his friend and stared back at his pasta. He would swear that it was moving . “Ugh.”

“So...” Ethos prompted. “Space case?” 

Selene gave in and told him the whole embarrassing tragedy of his lost underwear, his thoughts on the identity of the thief, and his ill-advised solution to the problem.

Ethos snorted into his plate. “You have the weirdest problems. I bet Helios will appreciate your stow-away laundry, though,” Ethos teased. “Where is he, now that I think about it?”

“He’s on the Siddha with his sister.” Selene shuddered a little; Valentina didn’t need to be possessed and wielding a flame thrower to scare the crap out of him. “He’s mad at me right now,” Selene admitted.

Helios had introduced Selene to Valentina as his Navigator, and Valentina had taken one look at the blush on her baby brother’s face and deduced the rest. She’d cornered Selene later in the hallway with a look on her face that Selene knew well, because he’d practiced it in the mirror when his sisters first started coming home tittering about boys.

Selene opened their verbal match. “Let me guess. If I hurt him, they’ll never find my body.”

Valentina raised an eyebrow and parried. “Have you much heard this speech before, Earth boy?” 

Epic miscalculation. Placation needed. Selene went for honesty. “Given it, actually. I have two younger sisters. They’re twins.”

Valentina tilted her chin up and smiled in amusement. “Good. Then you do understand. But I have been practicing, so you will permit me to threaten you anyways.” She stepped in closer and narrowed her eyes at him. “If you hurt him, then we will conduct an experiment to find out how long you can survive in a slowly decompressing airlock. Da?” 

Selene shuddered again and stared at Ethos with pleading eyes. “Actually, if I don’t report for duty tomorrow, send out a search party and drag Valentina in for interrogation until she gives up where she’s stashed my body. Maybe start with the airlocks.”

“Uh-oh. What did you do?” Ethos leaned forward in anticipation of gossip, knocked his coffee mug over and spilled coffee all over himself and their lunches. Selene had discovered that, despite being incredibly smart and a damn good Navigator, once outside his ship, Ethos had the kind of coordination and spatial awareness that would embarrass a dead fish. Between Ethos and Praxis, Ethos was much more likely to walk into walls. Selene had seen him do it. More than once. He’d also learned that sitting across from Ethos at meals put him in the collateral damage zone and he had developed an excellent sense of when to duck to spare himself and his clothes. With his luck these days, his uniform jacket would come back from the laundry sized to fit a gorilla.

“Oops, sorry.” Ethos looked down at the stain on his uniform jacket in dismay. “I sometimes wonder who had the brilliant idea to make our uniforms white. Seems like a poor choice with how much time we spend up to our elbows in engine parts.” He shrugged it off. “So, what did you do?” 

Selene sighed and pushed his lunch farther away. He hadn’t been planing on eating it anyway although the addition of coffee probably wouldn’t have made it taste any worse. “It is possibly slightly conceivable, that I might have sort of kinda, perhaps fallen asleep just a little bit while Helios was going down on me last night.” 

Ethos goggled at him. “Wow... You suck.”

“It’s just, I was so tired, and it was like, round three, and it’s not like I was going to get off again, but I didn’t want to tell him to stop because it still felt so nice and warm and I was so comfortable that I just... drifted off. That ever happen to you, Ethos?”

“Um, n-no.” Selene could probably melt solder with the heat coming off of Ethos’ face.

“You really need to get laid, huh?”

“No!” Ethos was loud enough that people at the surrounding tables paused in their lunch conversations to stare at him. “Ahahahaha...” Ethos buried his head in his arms, face down on the table. “I hate you.”

“You know I’m right.” 

“Maybe. I still hate you.”

“That’s okay. I’m such a good friend that I will still help you find some sweet thing for some sweet lovin’.” Selene couldn’t help teasing his friend. “Or maybe some rough and tumble guy for a rough and tumble time? Hey, how do you say ‘let’s get it on’ in Dutch? ” He stretched out his leg and ran his toes behind Ethos’ knee. “Tell you what. If Helios kicks me to the curb, I selflessly volunteer to lay you myself.”

“So you can fall asleep on me, too?” Ethos could be sassy when he wanted to be. 

Selene laughed, playing along. “Ohh, for you hot stuff, I’ll stay up all night.”

Suddenly, there was a presence behind him, and a voice purred in his ear. “Such a generous offer. Would you stay up all night for me too, sweetest Selene? Ahh, I’d really love to study your ‘heavenly body.’” 

Selene’s instinctive reaction to someone sneaking up behind him and verbally sexing him up was to defend himself with the nearest deadly weapon. Unfortunately for Argon, the nearest deadly weapon was lunch, and he ended up with it in his face. Sadly, this did nothing to stop the flow of his mouth. 

“How kind of you to share your lunch with me. By the way, do you know what is on the menu today? Me-n-u, sweetest Selene.” Argon cast a critical eye over Ethos with his sweet, red face, fluffy hair and coffee stained uniform. “But I suppose we can have him for dessert if you want.”

Selene felt one eye start to twitch. “For the love of Gods, please go away and leave me alone! I would seriously rather sit and watch my friend have a surreal conversation with his concussed Fighter than spend time with you.”

Across from him, Ethos started laughing so hard that he was in danger of falling off the bench.

“Such fire! Such passion! It is a good thing I wore my gloves today or you would truly be too hot to handle.” He leaned in close and whispered in Selene’s ear, “But I am a brave man, and for my next mission, I am up to explore Ura-

“Aaaaaaahhhh!!!” Selene was suddenly standing on the bench, screaming and shoving his finger in Argon’s pasta covered face. He cast desperately around his brain and instinctively hurled the worst threat that came to mind. “Fuck off, or I’m telling Valentina.” 

Ethos did fall off the bench at that, and Selene watched Ethos roll around on the floor laughing at his pain. Selene hadn’t realized the universe would take him so literally; he’d been being sarcastic earlier when he said that to Ethos. At least Selene got some small satisfaction from the fact that Ethos _was_ actually scaring people with his shrieking laughter.

Fortunately, the threat worked on Argon, which was good because otherwise Selene was never going to live it down that he’d threatened his stalker with his boyfriend... ’s big sister. Argon made a sad, wounded animal noise as if remembering some horrible previous encounter with Valentina, and backed slowly out of the mess, leaving a trail of noodles behind him.

Ethos hauled himself back up onto the bench, still laughing. “Life is so much more interesting with you around.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and checked the clock. “Oh, bother. I’ve got to get up to the bridge. Abel asked me to cover his shift for him, because he said Cain is sick as a dog right now. I’ll see you later. Give my love to Valentina!”

Selene let that one slide and skeptically watched him go. ‘Sick as a dog, huh?’ Selene could think of a few other ways that Cain was like a dog that were a lot more likely to explain Abel’s absence from work.

*** 

Selene found out a few hours later that Abel actually hadn’t been pulling Ethos’ leg about Cain. He was working in the med bay reviewing CT scans with the MO for their report when Abel frog-march Cain through the doors. 

“I’m fucking fine, princess,” Cain slurred. “How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t need no shit for brains doctor.”

Abel looked unimpressed. “Nope. When you vomit so hard it ends up on the ceiling, you go to medical. I’m pretty sure that’s written down somewhere.” He turned to the MO. “Where do you want him?”

The MO helped Abel dump Cain onto one of the beds and roughly shoved a thermometer in his mouth in retaliation for the ‘shit for brains’ comment. “Jesus, doc. Buy me a fucking drink first.” The MO went to get a barf bucket and Cain soldiered bravely on around the thermometer. “It did not hit the ceiling, Abel. And I’m pretty damn sure that it’s not written down.”

“On. The. Ceiling.” Abel argued back. “And I’m going to write it down on your face if you don’t knock it off.” Abel finally noticed Selene staring slack-jawed at the comedy routine that passed for normal in their relationship. “Oh, hi, Selene! How’s your day going?”

“Difficult to say...” Selene stared at Abel’s flushed face and slightly unfocused eyes. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I... I... ” Abel looked confused. “I smell pie. Do you smell pie? I smell pie.” He turned away from Selene and started looking haphazardly under beds and in drawers. “Gosh, where’s it coming from?” 

The MO dropped the bucket at Cain’s side and went to intercept Abel. Cain laughed drunkenly as the MO helped an unresisting Abel into the next bed. “Pfft hahahaaahurk. When you smell pie, you go to medical,” he mocked.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Cain. I... no seriously, I smell pie.” The MO came at him with a thermometer and Abel blushed a little. “Oh, yes please... I think I need to lie down.”

“You _are_ lying down, princess.” 

Selene hit the far wall, and he realized that he had been slowly backing away from Cain and Abel. He’d fetched up next to Praxis and he looked over at him, hoping for solidarity. Instead, Praxis gave him a very large, very uncharacteristic smile, a small wave and a, “Yoo-hoo!”

Selene stared at him. “Yoo-hoo yourself, Praxis.”

“Hi there.” Praxis craned his head around to try and see behind Selene, and Selene turned around to stare at the blank wall behind him.

“Praxis?”

“Where’s the other one?” Praxis looked disappointed.

“What other one?” Selene was mystified and starting to worry. Praxis seemed worse today than he had yesterday.

“The fluffy one that comes with you.” Praxis looked at Selene like he was crazy, which Selene thought was a bit much given the conversation they were having. 

“The fluffy... you mean _Ethos_ , your Navigator?”

“Yes, the fluffy one. Like a puppy on his head.” Praxis’ voice became very serious. “Do you think he will let me pet the puppy?”

“Doctor!” Selene was not qualified to deal with this.

The MO hustled over and shoved a thermometer in Praxis’ mouth. Praxis flailed a little bit. “Not my kink!” he complained.

“101.3,” the MO said, looking concerned. “Cain and Abel also have high fevers. I really hope there isn’t something going around. I’ve got my hands full with this now, Selene. Is it okay if we pick back up again later?”

“Sure, no problem.” Selene really didn’t want to catch whatever they had. Besides, he couldn’t wait to find Ethos and tell him that Praxis wanted to pet his puppy.

***

Selene found Ethos on the bridge, spinning around and around in his swivel chair, and his only reaction to Selene’s announcement was to start spinning the other way.

“Did you hear me, Ethos? He wants to pet the puppy you have on your head.” Selene waggled an eyebrow at Ethos. “I guess rough and tumble it is.”

Ethos stared at him a little absently, and Selene worried that he had finally broken his friend.

“Ethos?”

Ethos gave him a dopey smile. “Oh, please don’t stop talking. Your words are such pretty colors. Blue and silver and gray and purple,” he sing-songed, “like clouds across the moon.” He giggled. “Maybe that’s why they named you Selene?”

“Uh-huh. Ok, Ethos; time to go to medical.”

“Oh.” Ethos sadly looked down to where his swivel chair was firmly bolted to the floor and clearly not capable of making the trip to medical with him. “Do I havta?”

“Yes. When you start seeing words in pretty colors, it’s time to go to medical.” Fuck, he sounded like Abel, but Selene had to admit that he had a point. Ethos looked unconvinced.

“I’m sure they have swivel chairs there too, Ethos,” Selene hedged. It was the right bribe, and Selene had to chase after Ethos down the hallway to the lift.

Once back in the med bay, Selene hauled Ethos onto one of the remaining free beds and looked around. Medical had gotten even more crowded in the thirty minutes he had been gone. In addition to Cain, Abel and Praxis, Porthos was sitting on a bed humming loudly with his fingers in his ears and Athos was rolling around on the floor and having a deeply involved conversation with Porthos’ left shoe. Selene wanted to have a deeply involved conversation with Porthos regarding the state of his underwear, but he had bigger problems to worry about.

The MO came over to stare at Ethos. “Another one? That’s it. I’m calling all of you in.”

“What? Calling all who in? What’s happening?” Selene was starting to get seriously freaked out. 

Athos rolled over on the floor to wave at Selene. “The little elves all say it’s the space flu!” 

“Attention. This is the Medical Officer speaking. All members of the Derelict deployment crew please report to the med bay at once. I repeat: all members of the Derelict deployment crew please report to the med bay at once.”

“Doc?” Selene appealed to the only other sane person in the room for answers.

“Ethos’ blood work won’t be back for a while yet, but I’ve got results from five of the twelve people that were on the Derelict all showing multiply anomalies.” He pointed to Cain, “This one has symptoms of a drug overdose, which I could believe, except I’ve got Abel and Ethos both presenting with synesthesia, Athos is on the floor talking to the machine elves, Porthos apparently has a voice in his head telling him to act like a chicken, and Praxis thinks his Navigator’s hair is a puppy. Any other group and I’d say they’d all taken psychotropic drugs. As it is, it’s too much of a coincidence to ignore.”

The MO looked disgusted. “I told Commander Hayden that we have a fourteen day minimum mandatory quarantine period for a reason, but no! Twelve hours and you’re all cleared for duty. ‘They’re all fine,’ he says. ‘I need them back at work,’ he says. Bah!”

The door to the med bay swished open and Phobos stomped in. “There better be an emergency if you’re calling me in when I’m not even on duty. Can’t it wait?” Across the room, Ethos started screaming about the noxious black and yellow words coming out of Phobos’ mouth and went to hide in the corner by Praxis who was overjoyed that he finally got to pet the puppy. Porthos hoped off the bed and started bobbing back and forth in small circles and squawking like an angry hen, and Athos grabbed him around the knees and tried to knock him over because was stepping on his new friends. Abel started babbling about how he could smell chicken pot pie and Cain laughed at him until he threw up. 

On Phobos.

Phobos started shrieking, which only made everything worse, but Selene didn’t have much attention to spare for the three ring circus in front of him, because the door swished open again and Valentina stalked in with Helios in tow.

“Selene!” Helios glomped Selene in a full body hug, wrapping his arms around him and trapping his hands at his sides. Helios picked him up off his feet, spinning them both around in little circles and gazing up at him with pupils that were dilated so wide that he looked a little possessed. “I missed you! You’re my favoritest person even if you did fall asleep when mphhhtth mrmm-” Selene couldn’t get his hands free to muffle Helios’ humiliating declaration, so he used his mouth and kissed Helios instead. It worked to solve the immediate problem, but he quickly realized that he had several new ones, because Helios was _hard_ and he took the kiss as an invitation to start grinding up against him and nosing into his neck, and Selene suddenly remembered that he still wasn’t wearing any underwear. He was starting to feel dizzy and overheated, not to mention terribly embarrassed.

“Oh Gods, Helios put me down, put me down.” The moment Selene got his feet back on the floor, he spun around in Helios’ arms and looked desperately at the MO. “What’s wrong with them? Can you fix them?”

“I still don’t know what’s causing it.” The MO stared at all of their charts laid out on the table around him. “Some kind of infection, maybe?? IgM presence in the bl°od sugggests Ѫ virus. Best guess, an aeroaeroaerosol virus small enough to get thrghou the aeroaero filters on your ȿuits. There’s any number of bodilɏ systemmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmzzzz it could infect, or chem¡cals it could manufacture to produƆe these results. Maybe N,N-ƉMT. That’s a fast onset ȹsychedelic that ῗs known for producing halllulululuucinations, and it ʬould explain the elev...” 

Selene was pretty sure that he was supposed to be paying attention, but the large primary-colored figure from his  
organic chemistry nightmares  
standing in front of him was saying such strange things.  
He spun around to look at Helios and instead there was a spherical lattice in shades of orange partially wrapped around him, and on the bed in the corner  
a multicolored, bizarre star  
prism huddled up next to a dark blue three dimensional hyperbolic shape from his calculus nightmares, and  
there was a neon red gourd shape that went  
around and  
around on itself in impossible circles, and a shape  
that looked like a  
child’s round toy puzzle, and a puffy starfish shape with 

lots of arms, and a barfingly green prickly  
tower shape, and a pale blue and yellow  
e x p l o d e d star shape, and a gray and 

blue streaked torus shape that kept throwing up trapezoids  
and it all seemed so complicatedly geometrical,  
and he gave up and  
passed  
out  
on  
the  
floor  
.

*** 

When Selene woke up some unknown amount of time later, it was to an IV in his arm and Helios cuddled up behind him making soft sleeping noises in his ear. Selene sat up a little bit and looked around. He was tucked into a bed with Helios in the med bay and they were both wearing the stupid patient gowns, so he guessed it had been a while since his sudden descent into polyhedral hell. The lights were dimmed and casting all sorts of strange shadows on the walls, which wasn’t helping with his lingering headache. In the center of the room, Lieutenant Keeler sat in a chair humming to himself and brushing out his long hair. 

“Oh. You’re awake.” Keeler noticed his movement and came over to sit on the edge of Selene’s bed. He spoke softly so as not to wake Helios or any of the others. “I’m sorry that we had to double you up with Helios, but we ran out of beds and I didn’t think you’d mind so much.” 

Keeler gently stroked the hair out of Selene’s face and his cool hands felt good on Selene’s overheated skin. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, maybe?” Selene honestly wasn’t sure yet.

Keeler gave an amused huff of soft laughter. “Better as in well, or better in the relative sense?”

“The second one, I think.” After all, Lieutenant Keeler was only mostly Lieutenant Keeler. Sometimes, when Selene blinked, there was instead a truly baffling triangular rectangle in a pretty violet color. Selene hazily wondered why his brain was so fixated on obscure polyhedra, and if the shapes had any relevance to the individual they replaced. Selene set that thought aside for further contemplation, and asked the more pertinent question. “So, what happened, sir?” 

“Infection. Viral. Nothing quite like anything we’ve ever seen before. One of the viral proteins it produced was similar enough in shape to the amino acid tryptophan to act as a serotonin-norepinephrine-dopamine releasing agent. 

Selene stared where he thought the impossible purple shape’s eyes were, and tried again.

“So, what happened, sir?”

Keeler gave his soft laugh. “You all caught a virus that made you trip out. The MO has you on antiviral drugs that seem to be helping at least a little. Past that, the best thing you can do is rest and let your body clear it from your system. Both the Kepler and the Siddha are under mandatory twenty-eight day extended quarantine now to see if any of the rest of the crew is infected. It is going to be,” Keeler paused and his eyes sparkled in the dim room, “a very interesting trip back.”

The door slid open and Encke stuck his head inside. “Keeler, are you still in here? Come to bed, baby; I know you’ve got a lot of work tomorrow.”

Curious to see what Encke looked like through his infected eyes, Selene levered himself up farther and turned towards the door. Completely unlike anything he had expected, Encke was an amber and gold cube that seemed to have too many edges, and when he moved, Selene thought his head might have exploded because the way the cube moved was definitely violating at least one law of the universe as he knew it. Selene was so busy trying to reconcile what he was seeing that he almost missed Keeler’s reply.

“I’ll be there in a minute, sweetheart. Just catching Selene up on the state of things.” Keeler stood up and stretched with a sigh before walking back to his chair to pick up his brush. He turned to smile at Selene. “I’ll come back and check on you and the rest again tomorrow. Sleep well, Selene.”

“You too, sir.” 

Keeler started to make his way out, but stopped short halfway to the door and seemed to remember something. He came back over to stand by Selene, and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “By the way, this fell out of your pant leg while I was helping the medical team change your clothes.” He pressed something into Selene’s hand and gave him a little wink before walking out the door.

Selene stared at the object in his hand with a horrible sinking sensation in his stomach.

It was official. The universe had it out for him.

It was his thong. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> Look up through Wikipedia for good pictures.  
> MO: Skew Apeirohedron  
> Helios: Buckminsterfullerene  
> Ethos: Star Antiprism  
> Praxis: Hyperbolic Hyperboloid of One Sheet  
> Athos: Klein Bottle  
> Porthos: Small Cubicuboctahedron  
> Valentina: Star Bipyramid  
> Phobos: Star Trapezohedra  
> Abel: Great Stellated Dodecahedron  
> Cain: Toroidal Polyhedron  
> Keeler: Schönhardt Polyhedron  
> Encke: Tesseract


End file.
